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Wednesday, January 27, 2010

☞ SEE: Romare Bearden at the Metropolitan

The collage artist Romare Bearden's family in 1913 moved to New York's African-American mecca when he was three, and he would grow up to be one of Harlem's most important modern artist. The Metropolitan Museum of Art currently has a show honoring his most important work called The Block (1971), which shows daily life in Harlem at the corner of 132nd and Lenox Avenue. This 18 foot-long collage shows adversity along with the bond of community, which is a constant theme in his works and, interestingly enough, was inspired by the view from a friend's apartment at Hamilton Terrace. The show will run into spring at the Met, so stop by before it's over. Also, the block still exists today (lower photo) and can be reached by taking the 2,3 express train to 135th Street. There's also a great interactive site about the show that the museum has set up: LINK.